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does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

hi,
haven't been around here lately. being doing zazen on a off for a few months. i basically got interested in zen and buddhism as a way to help me deal with stress, depression, anxiety, etc. therapy gives insight, but i'm just dying here with the constant struggle of life. aka, suffering as the buddha taught. those of you who have been practicing a while. does zazen help...even though that's not the goal

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

As jundo and many other people on this forum point out, Zen does not remove the problems and difficulties in your life, either outer or inner. The ride is a bumpy one, many ups and downs, from clown to star and back again to clown. What practice DOES when one DOES practice is to give you an opportunity to accept and embrace your life as is. Scruffy, wet and bad tempered bear today is okay, sunny and joyful too. Moonface Craig or sunface Craig, just fine. Questions you may ask yourself could be...What makes this so painful? Who makes this so painful? What do I believe in that makes this so painful? Why should I be happy? And do you really know what happy means anyway? Nothing outside this time-being moment that we call now, dark or light, it is all there is. Start from there. forget Zen, Buddha and ready-made answers, fish the golden fish with open eyes, you are and everything around you the beautiful water where it swimns. We call this practice.
Enjoy! :wink:

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Zazen has not made a single one of my problems go away -- but it has helped me to accept them and cope with them in a more productive and healthy way.

I am by nature a rather impatient man, and can be quite snarly and grumpy at times. Before I began zazen in earnest a few years ago, I was like that a lot. Once I gave zazen a real effort, I noticed that the things that previously annoyed me still annoyed me every bit as much as they always did -- but I no longer acted as though the world existed merely to annoy me. I (usually) am kinder toward others, and able to see that whatever it is they are doing is not necessarily intended just to tick me off, etc. I no longer (usually) respond to random acts of the universe as though they were intentional acts of a universe that is out to get me.

My wife notices, too. If things get hectic and I let my practice slide, she'll notice a resurgence of grumpiness and ask me point-blank: "Have you been meditating?" Friends will sometimes see the uptick in stress, etc., too, whether they know about my zazen or not.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

i basically got interested in zen and buddhism as a way to help me deal with stress, depression, anxiety, etc. therapy gives insight, but i'm just dying here with the constant struggle of life.

Seems hopeless doesn't it? Like the world is just full of shit, and we are shitty from the moment that we wake up in the morning.

What the F**K is my problem? I just want it to go away.

...

Well, let me tell you something Buster.

We have those moments. We might have those moments very frequently. However, I can assure you (I am not kidding around). If you continue to practice and accept that this is the way you are at this moment, something will happen. Your practice will begin to balance out. Keep sitting. This is important. If you don't study the self through sitting Zazen, then how do you plan on dropping it?

We might have an experience eventually where things are open and balanced. At this moment you are letting Zazen do Zazen, and getting out of the way of your experience. However, we must not search for that, and we must not attach any important meaning or hope to that experience. Study the self. See the movement of thought when peace arises and your wanting to hang on to it. Don't attach. Drop. Open. Bodymind will balance out.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Hi Craig
lots of good posts and i should refrain from adding my compost but ... i won't

As you have already read this practice actually can make life just that much harder if you want to see it that way. You have to look at the shit parts as well as the shiny, see all the rough and splintered parts and learn to live with them. Of course living with them doesn't only mean accepting your life as is but also working to improve the parts that you can. Your cruddy aspects of life are perfectly cruddy but you have wonderful parts too and you can always work away at the parts you need to. Zen isnt therapy and im still and ass a lot of the time...but im seeing more and more and can try to course correct for my shortcomings(also my family ... all of em notice the difference in "me" when im practicing vs slumping not sitting etc)

Sorry not really much help or anything that hasn't been said but i thought you it would be good to see we are all right there with you by times.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Yes, I think it does. to live well requires some effort, the same effort while practicing zazen. paying attention to the moment is not automatic, it's a choice. Because we do the same things over and over (like eat, clean up, work, etc.) they become like habits and sometimes seem like drudgery. focusing on the present makes things fresh and allows one to see possibilities. Life is not easy, effort is required.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by ZenYen

Zazen has not made a single one of my problems go away -- but it has helped me to accept them and cope with them in a more productive and healthy way.

I am by nature a rather impatient man, and can be quite snarly and grumpy at times. Before I began zazen in earnest a few years ago, I was like that a lot. Once I gave zazen a real effort, I noticed that the things that previously annoyed me still annoyed me every bit as much as they always did -- but I no longer acted as though the world existed merely to annoy me. I (usually) am kinder toward others, and able to see that whatever it is they are doing is not necessarily intended just to tick me off, etc. I no longer (usually) respond to random acts of the universe as though they were intentional acts of a universe that is out to get me.

My wife notices, too. If things get hectic and I let my practice slide, she'll notice a resurgence of grumpiness and ask me point-blank: "Have you been meditating?" Friends will sometimes see the uptick in stress, etc., too, whether they know about my zazen or not.

So ... it helps me, anyway.

thanks for the post. this is what i'm talking about, i think. of course problems don't go away, but it seems that zen has helped you some. i'm curious, what entails 'giving zazen real effort'?
peace
craig

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

i basically got interested in zen and buddhism as a way to help me deal with stress, depression, anxiety, etc. therapy gives insight, but i'm just dying here with the constant struggle of life.

Seems hopeless doesn't it? Like the world is just full of shit, and we are shitty from the moment that we wake up in the morning.

What the F**K is my problem? I just want it to go away.

...

Well, let me tell you something Buster.

We have those moments. We might have those moments very frequently. However, I can assure you (I am not kidding around). If you continue to practice and accept that this is the way you are at this moment, something will happen. Your practice will begin to balance out. Keep sitting. This is important. If you don't study the self through sitting Zazen, then how do you plan on dropping it?

We might have an experience eventually where things are open and balanced. At this moment you are letting Zazen do Zazen, and getting out of the way of your experience. However, we must not search for that, and we must not attach any important meaning or hope to that experience. Study the self. See the movement of thought when peace arises and your wanting to hang on to it. Don't attach. Drop. Open. Bodymind will balance out.

Gassho

will-
thanks for the validation and the pep talk. it's good to hear the basics again. i like the idea of balancing out. i hope this happens soon.
craig

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by Rich

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Yes, I think it does. to live well requires some effort, the same effort while practicing zazen. paying attention to the moment is not automatic, it's a choice. Because we do the same things over and over (like eat, clean up, work, etc.) they become like habits and sometimes seem like drudgery. focusing on the present makes things fresh and allows one to see possibilities. Life is not easy, effort is required.

i see what you're saying. zazen has been really hard for me to get into, but i like the idea of just coming back to 'just sitting' when i get involved with thoughts and feelings etc. same with the rest of the day. if i'm washing the dishes and thinking about all the other stuff i have to do, then its suffering...drudgery. if i just keep coming back to washing the dishes, it's quite refreshing. make any sense?
craig

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Craig: For me, "real effort" meant doing zazen every night ... good mood, bad mood, tired, bored, whatever, I had to just make myself do it. Every night.

It also meant doing it more mindfully than I had in the past. Once upon a time, I'd sit and watch thoughts come and sometimes dwell on them and then half-heartedly nudge them aside, then do it all again, etc. I'd get some stillness out of meditation, some quiet time and a chance to think, but I got nothing that really seemed to spill over into my daily life. I'd do this for a month or so, decide I was getting nowhere, then quit. A few months later, I'd try again.

A few years ago, I sharpened my focus and really tried to just be aware. I slowly got better at recognizing thoughts and letting them pass by, and that kind of mind-flitting-around stuff stopped being a frequent part of my meditation, and I was spending less time thinking and more time being aware, if that makes sense. It's not like I've really mastered anything, because I still have zazen nights when my mind just hops around all over the place now and then. But it was at this point where I realized there was less of that going on that I seemed to mellow a bit in my daily life, and began to react to problems better and even find joy in things that previously irritated the heck out of me. So, I can definitely see in my own practice that zen has been a boon.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

"if i'm washing the dishes and thinking about all the other stuff i have to do, then its suffering...drudgery. if i just keep coming back to washing the dishes, it's quite refreshing. make any sense?
craig"

Yea, that's what I do. At some point I know that I have to put it all down and just do it - wash the dishes, clean the car, make the schedule, pay the bills. It's the same with sitting - let the thinking go, adjust the posture, just breathe, just sit, just be whatever it is.

Wherever the next mediation is. Every now and then I make it back to Norfolk, England.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

I rather liked a story I read (can't find it now even with the all seeing Google) about a man who came to the Buddha and told him all his woes. The Buddha listened attentively, and then commented that the man clearly had 76 problems. The man was surprised, and impressed, to hear that he had that many problems, and eagerly asked the Buddha how many he could help with. "None of them" replied the Buddha. Now, the man was less than impressed, and the Buddha explained that it was simply a fact of life that everyone had 76 problems, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "What good are you then?" asked the man, "what problems can you help with?". "Ah", said the Buddha, "I can only help with the 77th problem". "What's the 77th problem?" asked the man. "The 77th problem", replied the Buddha, "is thinking the first 76 are problems".

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Martin: There is a version of that story in "Buddhism: Plain and Simple" by Steve Hagen. In that book, the master tells the man that "we've all got 83 problems, each one of us." He then tells the man that Buddhist teaching cannot help him with any of those 83 problems, but it can help him with "the 84th problem." The man asks, "What is the 84th problem?" and is told that the 84th problem is that "you want to not have any problems."

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by ZenYen

Craig: For me, "real effort" meant doing zazen every night ... good mood, bad mood, tired, bored, whatever, I had to just make myself do it. Every night.

It also meant doing it more mindfully than I had in the past. Once upon a time, I'd sit and watch thoughts come and sometimes dwell on them and then half-heartedly nudge them aside, then do it all again, etc. I'd get some stillness out of meditation, some quiet time and a chance to think, but I got nothing that really seemed to spill over into my daily life. I'd do this for a month or so, decide I was getting nowhere, then quit. A few months later, I'd try again.

A few years ago, I sharpened my focus and really tried to just be aware. I slowly got better at recognizing thoughts and letting them pass by, and that kind of mind-flitting-around stuff stopped being a frequent part of my meditation, and I was spending less time thinking and more time being aware, if that makes sense. It's not like I've really mastered anything, because I still have zazen nights when my mind just hops around all over the place now and then. But it was at this point where I realized there was less of that going on that I seemed to mellow a bit in my daily life, and began to react to problems better and even find joy in things that previously irritated the heck out of me. So, I can definitely see in my own practice that zen has been a boon.

thanks for explaining. i know it's about radical goalessness, but let's be (un)real for one second. we all have initial reasons for doing some form of meditation or practice initially. i'm just saying mine rather than acting like it doesn't exist. and to get the record straight for all the roshis out there, i know zen is not gonna make my problems go away!! :lol:
peace
craig

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

The main thing is that you keep sitting consistently. Don't put any hope in your practice. Just sit.

Dogen Zenji:

It shows itself when we give up our intentions

....

It is a practice that sets body and mind right.

We all have off moments or off days. Eventually we will see how we can wander off the road when we fail to sit Zazen (some of us more than others). Right now is right now. You can't force practice. You can't "Manufacture a Buddha on the cushion" as they say.

Anyway, you have received lots of good stories and experiences from all these guys, so keep sitting, and study the self.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by Craig

thanks for explaining. i know it's about radical goalessness, but let's be (un)real for one second. we all have initial reasons for doing some form of meditation or practice initially. i'm just saying mine rather than acting like it doesn't exist. and to get the record straight for all the roshis out there, i know zen is not gonna make my problems go away!! :lol:
peace
craig

Hi Craig,

Ya know, I go back and forth on this issue ... but I think you are right in this. I just read something by Sheng Yen which was on point ...

... people living in American society today, under the strain and pressure of the present environment, suffer excessive tension, and many have lost their mental balance. Some are so severely tense that they have to consult a psychiatrist. Among those who come to learn Chan, I have one woman student, an outstanding lecturer in a well-known university, who asked me at the first meeting if I could help to relieve her from tense and uneasy moods. I told her that for a Chan practitioner this is a very simple matter. After five lessons she felt that Chan was a great blessing to her life.
...

[HOWEVER] If one's object of study is just to acquire physical and mental balance, and not to study meditation proper, then one will probably feel that the completion of the first stage is enough; but many students are not content with this

and, indeed, Sheng Yen then goes on to point out that the real "fruits" of Zen practice can only be harvested in what comes next ... that whole "escape from the sense of small 'I'" thingy ...

There is also nothing "wrong" per se in using a little Zazen just to relax a bit. But using Zen for just a bit of relaxation or good health is called "Bompu Zen", and is rather like missing the real medicine which Zazen offers. It is a bandaid, not the real cure for the Dukkha that our practice provides. To get the true benefits of the practice, one needs to press on ...

And on your original posting ...

Yes, sometimes I compare Zen Practice to a wonderful toolbelt of mental tools we develop with practice, fitting particular situations. Sometimes, we can learn to "be in the moment" with washing the dishes. Sometimes washing the dishes will even be tasted as an experience which transcends time and space ... all the universe is in that washing!

But other times ... washing dishes will just be dull and tedious. And that is just life.

Our Zen practice embraces all of that ... push none of that away. When amused be amused, when bored ... just be bored. Life is sometimes to be bored, sometimes not be be bored. The "Zen" part is not to resist that sometimes we are bored ... or even to resist that sometimes we resist to be bored! 8) That, strangely, makes us at home in our lives and thus reduces the fire which feeds the boredom!

(In fact, my recommendation to you is that the correct response may not be in your Zen practice alone ... but in finding a new job or hobby! )

Gassho, Jundo

Ps- And all of us should be a little forgiving when the inevitable "zenisms" "inscrutable sayings" and such creep into to conversations. We keep it to a minimum around here, but it kinda goes with the territory sometimes. I try to stamp it out when I see it, but we are all guilty from time to time (me too). The speaker should try to avoid the "stink of Zen", and the listener should try to get past the "stink of Zen" to the message conveyed.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Hi Dirk,

Just one thing about this comment I wish to underline ...

Originally Posted by Dirk

As you have already read this practice actually can make life just that much harder if you want to see it that way. You have to look at the shit parts as well as the shiny, see all the rough and splintered parts and learn to live with them. Of course living with them doesn't only mean accepting your life as is but also working to improve the parts that you can. Your cruddy aspects of life are perfectly cruddy but you have wonderful parts too and you can always work away at the parts you need to.

It is important to recall that our "accepting of the cruddy parts" of life via Buddhist practice is not mere resignation or stoic "bite the bullet"-ness. It is not a "beaten down" acceptance. It is that little light of "illumination" that shines in the silence of our sitting, the subtle smile on the Buddha's face even when facing all the crud. I did a talk on this recently ...

Don't get me wrong, I am not talking about some simple, cockeyed optimism ...

I sometimes talk about an aspect of our Zen practice I call "acceptance without acceptance" ...

By that I mean an approach to all the ugly and painful aspects of life and this world which are just so hard (perhaps impossible) to accept.

We can accept and not accept simultaneously, repair what needs to be repaired.

I recall, for example, a dear zen-friend of mine who, facing a serious illness, accepted the condition fully, accepted that it is natural for us to all get sick sometimes - yet fought the good fight for a cure.

That is acceptance without acceptance.

Today, I would just like to add another perspective that makes us the mystics which we are ...

For besides merely accepting while not accepting ... we might EMBRACE, CELEBRATE and SINK RIGHT IN! (and that includes the worst of it)! Maybe not all the time, but lots of times even in the face of the worst crud of life!

Any garden is flowers and weeds ... life is beauty and ugliness (some of it heartbreaking). Yet we see ALL of that as life's nature. We not only accept and tolerate ... we GIVE THANKS FOR all sides of it.

...

Now, don't ever get this point wrong: Praising the weeds and wars and wrongs, and being thankful for all of it ... that does not mean we do not set to pulling weeds, fixing this world, righting wrongs.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

The main thing is that you keep sitting consistently. Don't put any hope in your practice. Just sit.

Dogen Zenji:

It shows itself when we give up our intentions

....

It is a practice that sets body and mind right.

We all have off moments or off days. Eventually we will see how we can wander off the road when we fail to sit Zazen (some of us more than others). Right now is right now. You can't force practice. You can't "Manufacture a Buddha on the cushion" as they say.

Anyway, you have received lots of good stories and experiences from all these guys, so keep sitting, and study the self.

Gassho _/_

and thank you for your practice

W

will-
this post and the dogen quote were quite helpful. i'm gonna copy it and put some where conspicuous i always forget to 'drop' anything. so thanks for reminding me.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by Craig

incidently, this is what i think causes so much suffering. my reactions to pretty much everything. it all just happens so fast. event>immediate reaction. rather than simply being the event, what ever it is. on paper, it seems nice and neat to 'just be bored' or whatever, but in reality, thoughts feelings reactions just are a big mess and it's a miracle to not get caught up in it all for a few seconds a day.
peace
craig

Understanding how we react and generally manufacture our own realities is one of the two wings on the one airplane of Buddhist Practice ... Keep up that examination and "self" understanding.

We had another thread on this recently ...

Originally Posted by Jundo

In traditional "lingo", our Practice does consist of both ?amatha (calming thoughts and emotions, illuminating and dropping body-mind) and awareness and understanding of vipa?yan? (insight and awareness primarily into the nature and workings of 'self' and mental functions).

In a nutshell, Vipa?yan? might be described as insights and awareness, based on Buddhist psychology, as to how the mind works and plays it games. It is an understanding of the Skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formation, consciousness ... those words always sung in the Heart Sutra), how our thoughts and emotional reactions arise, how we label and divide the world. We should also understand the Buddha's ideas about how suffering arises within us, which is intimately tied to all that.viewtopic.php?p=22898#p22898

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by Craig

Originally Posted by Jundo

Originally Posted by Craig

Ps- And all of us should be a little forgiving when the inevitable "zenisms" "inscrutable sayings" and such creep into to conversations. We keep it to a minimum around here, but it kinda goes with the territory sometimes. I try to stamp it out when I see it, but we are all guilty from time to time (me too). The speaker should try to avoid the "stink of Zen", and the listener should try to get past the "stink of Zen" to the message conveyed.

jundo,
thanks for the response. i agree about zenisms. my remark was a bit disparaging. my reaction to such things can be my own and i need not take it any farther. incidently, this is what i think causes so much suffering. my reactions to pretty much everything. it all just happens so fast. event>immediate reaction. rather than simply being the event, what ever it is. on paper, it seems nice and neat to 'just be bored' or whatever, but in reality, thoughts feelings reactions just are a big mess and it's a miracle to not get caught up in it all for a few seconds a day.
peace
craig

It helps when you can demonstrably show yourself that your thoughts are not necessarily true.

I do Byron Katie's 'Inquiry', but I'm sure there are many methods that could work.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

As an experienced reactionary, I can say with confidence that my small self is constantly jerked around by my senses, thinking mind and body. One reason I sit is to give my natural, true self an opportunity to grow and become stronger. Sometimes to help with the drudgery, I read and write stuff here.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by Rich

As an experienced reactionary, I can say with confidence that my small self is constantly jerked around by my senses, thinking mind and body. One reason I sit is to give my natural, true self an opportunity to grow and become stronger. Sometimes to help with the drudgery, I read and write stuff here.

The small stuff seems too be so much a force of habit that it's difficult to let go of such small desires and irritations. Oddly, the 'big stuff' that comes crashing through our lives is much easier to 'drop', IMHO.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

Originally Posted by disastermouse

The small stuff seems too be so much a force of habit that it's difficult to let go of such small desires and irritations. Oddly, the 'big stuff' that comes crashing through our lives is much easier to 'drop', IMHO.

Chet

Very very true, in my experience. Often, it has been so in my life.

Sometimes I think that I can more instantly and easily touch Wisdom in facing my whole house burning down ... faster then the patience to face washing the dirty windows in my house on a Sunday.

Re: does zen help with drudgery of everyday life.

So true,Chet and Jundo, the small stuff...like the irritating habit of a friend, the dog barking next door,the missing of this, the late that...But when big things hit: serenity, peace... What a joke I am! It is very humbling to notice how this "hardly anything" drives me nuts!